“It’s my job to take care of you, sweet baby, and part of that is protecting you. It’s my job to keep you safe. I’ll die doing it, Jessa.”
“Cole,” I whisper as my lips touch his, brushing them gently, not wanting to hurt him more. “I don’t deserve you, not even a little,” I whisper.
His arms jerk, squeezing me before he releases me. Then he whispers, “You don’t deserve me, you deserve better than me.”
My eyes fill with tears, but he doesn’t let me cry. He sits up, taking me with him, and together we shower. I take time to wash his body of blood, and check his injuries to the best of my ability. He informs me that nothings broken, as he knows exactly what a broken bone feels like from football injuries. We don’t make love or fuck again, we curl into each other and we sleep.
COLE
I WATCH JESSA walk into the hospital room. Taking my phone out of my pocket without delay, I call John. My eyes stay aimed at Jessa and Margie through the window as the phone rings. Margie’s eyes drift over to me, and I watch as they harden slightly. She doesn’t want Jessa leaving her boy for greater. She wants Jessa to slum it with her spoiled, coddled, piece of shit, prick kid forever. Fuck that.
“Cole,” John grunts, sounding groggy.
“Been thinking on it all night,” I state. He waits for me to continue. “We need a copy of that report of Pat’s, that or something concrete like that.”
“Then what?” he asks. “The athletic department already doesn’t give a fuck, man.”
I chuckle as I continue looking toward Jessa, her long dark blonde hair, her slim body, and her gorgeous ass in my view. “Yeah, our athletic department might not care, but I bet every fucking team we play will,” I state.
“Oh, fuck,” he rasps. “Cole, I don’t know.”
“Along with the goddamn news. You know that little fuck and I got into a fist fight last night? He could have killed me if he wanted to, I’m sure. He was so fucking high.”
John makes a noise in the back of his throat, a kind of groan. “You’ll be fired,” he states.
“I’ll quit. I don’t care. I’ll go back to high school ball,” I shrug as if it’s all the same to me.
Sure, it’ll be a hit to my paycheck, but at least I’ll be sleeping at night. I let this shit go on, these boys juicing, and I don’t say anything and someone gets hurt, or worse, dies? That shit falls on me. I can’t have that on my conscious.
“Come over tonight. Let’s devise a fucking plan. You can’t go out there guns blazing,” he murmurs.
“In Grant with Jessa. We’ll probably be in town around five,” I state.
“Bring her over here, she and Tiff can do girlie shit, get to know each other better. I’ll order pizza or somethin’.”
“See you then,” I say before I end the call.
Jessa walks out of the hospital room and looks up at me, her eyes bloodshot and rimmed in red from crying. I don’t say anything. I’ll talk to her in the truck. Right now, I just want to get my girl out of this fucking town and take her home—our home.
Hand-in-hand, we walk out of the hospital and toward my truck. I help her in the passenger seat before I climb my broken ass inside of the driver’s seat with a few moans and groans. I drive toward Lincoln, not saying anything until we’re free of the Grant city limits.
“Wanna tell me why you came out of that room in tears?” I ask quietly.
She sucks in a deep breath before she lets it all out, then she speaks. “Margie is angry with me. She thinks that I’ve betrayed her. That I used them. I thought that she’d want me happy, like Jim. She doesn’t. She wants me with Trent, taking care of him, and being there to pick up where he lacks. Meaning everywhere,” she states. I can’t help but chuckle lightly at her description.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Too bad Keller isn’t more like his old man,” I state. She makes a noise. “You feel guilty? Like you owe her and you want to go back to him?” I ask, curious about how she’s feeling.
Jessa tips her head to the side, and I feel her eyes on me as I continue to drive toward home. “No, not even a little,” she whispers. “I never loved him, not like I do you. I could live a miserable life with him if I wanted. Maybe he’ll be famous, and maybe I would have anything I wanted at my fingertips, but I would never have this—what we have. It would all be hollow.”
I pull over to the side of the road, unable to keep driving, as though her words aren’t a goddamn punch to my gut. “Cole?” she whispers, almost scared sounding.
Reaching across the truck, I wrap my hand around the back of her neck and I yank her toward me, swallowing her yelp of surprise as I plunge my tongue deep into her mouth and take her.
My tongue tangles with hers, and I groan when her hands slide up my chest, around my neck, and grip in my hair. When I can no longer kiss her, needing to breathe, only then do I press my forehead to hers and close my eyes before whispering, “I love you, Jessa. I fucking love you, baby.”
“Cole?” she asks, sounding confused by my reaction.
I pull away from her as much as her grip will let me, and then I tell her why her words affected me so much. “Larissa was my college girlfriend. She claimed to love me. Came to all of my games, cheered me on, and was right at my side when I signed on for pro-ball. She had grand plans for her fame and fortune from being on the arm of a pro-ball player. She was going to model, be famous herself, and we were going to be the fucking perfect couple. The day the doctor told me I’d never fully recover enough to play professionally, she walked out of that hospital room and I never saw her again.”
Jessa looks at me with sadness, not pity, but straight out fucking sadness, and then she nods. “But me, me not caring about that lifestyle, me loving you so much that money and fame aren’t worth losing what you give me, that means everything, doesn’t it?” she asks.
“Every-fucking-thing.”
JESSA
“I’M HEADING TO work,” Cole whispers, his lips skimming my shoulder as I snuggle even more against my pillow. “I’ll meet you at my office and walk you to your first class. Eleven, right?” he asks, just like he’s asked every morning this week.
Cole has been walking me to my classes from his office every day, then he walks me back, and I hang out on his sofa while I do my homework. It’s a little routine we’ve developed, and we’ve developed this because Trent is still unstable. He’s tried to corner me more than once; thankfully, Cole has been right there each time.
“I’ll be at your office around ten-thirty,” I mumble.
“See you then, baby,” Cole whispers against my skin.
He places a sweet kiss on my bare shoulder one more time before he stands up and starts to walk out of the room.
“Love you, Cole,” I call out.
“Love you, sweet baby,” he states, his voice even further away. I curl into my pillow and I let sleep take over one more time.
The day goes by just like every other has recently, and I’m grateful for the monotony and routine. I haven’t heard from Margie or Jim since leaving Grant. While it makes me sad that it seems as though they don’t want to be part of my life, or at least Margie doesn’t, I can’t help but still mourn the loss of the only family I’ve known.
Cole has practice late tonight, so he walked me home after my last class. Now I’m finishing a math assignment before I make a small dinner and veg on the sofa.
Without having to work nights, I find that I’m more relaxed, caught up on my work, and I feel less stressed. All a win-win; but I still try to take care of everything around the house to earn my keep, even though Cole says I don’t have to earn anything, because I’m his woman.
A knock on the door interrupts my browsing through the fridge, on a search for leftovers, and my eyebrows tug together as I make my way toward the door. There’s a woman standing outside, one I’ve never seen before. She looks harmless, a little rough around the edges, but I assume she’s a friend of Cole’s, so I open the door.
“Hello, can I help you?” I greet as I open the door. The woman grins, and it hits me like a freight train.
Her eyes don’t match mine, they never did, but her smile, that was something she gave me, along with thick hair. “Mom?” I breathe. I can’t believe I don’t recognize her. It hasn’t been that long since the last time I’ve seen her, but she looks completely different.
“Heard you were shacking up with some loser football coach, and here you are,” she laughs, sounding as though she’s smoked a pack-a-day since the day she was born.
“How did you find me?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. Refusing to open the door any more or invite her in.
She shrugs, flipping her hair back, and that’s when I look down at the rest of her body. She’s a little fluffier than I remember, her top is a tube top, and her skirt a jean mini-skirt. Both items at least two sizes too small, and she’s wearing wedge sandal flip flops. I don’t understand how she can be standing out in this cold wearing practically, nothing.
“You’re not hard to find. Everyone in Grant knew you became a stick-up her ass college girl who thinks she’s better than everybody else, just like you always fucking have.”
I jerk back as though I’ve been slapped, unsure of where this is all coming from. I haven’t seen her since the morning she left that fucking note for me and took off. Not a phone call, not a birthday card, nothing in the last three and a half years.
“Trent sent you?” I ask, narrowing my eyes on her. She scratches at her arm and grins.
“So you ain’t completely dumb. Good to know,” she chuckles.
My fingers grip the side of the door, and I inhale deeply before I exhale and lift my eyes to hers. She’s worthless, always has been, and nothing has changed. “What’s yours and his endgame here?” I ask.
“Trent wants to ruin your life, leave you alone and desperate. He’s payin’ me,” she states.
“And your game?”
She grins. “You’re just like your daddy. Think you’re better than everyone else in the whole fucking world. I can’t bring him down, never could, but you… you I can watch crumble and crawl.”
“My daddy?” I breathe.
She’s never mentioned my father growing up, just that he left. I assumed she didn’t really know who he was.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Cole shouts from behind my mother, jogging up the walkway and bypassing her to walk up to my side.
I watch as my mother takes him in, her mouth dropping slightly as her eyes rake over everything that is Cole. Then her face flushes, before it heats, and she sticks her chest out a little further as she flips her hair and pouts her lips.
“Cole, meet the woman who birthed and abandoned me, Stephanie Peterson,” I announce. Cole’s body freezes next to me, and I hear a low growl escape his lips. “She was just saying something about my daddy.”
My mother snorts and rolls her eyes before she turns to Cole, but I don’t let her speak. “Who is my daddy?” I demand.
Stephanie completely ignores me and focuses on Cole. “You know you shouldn’t be messing with a little girl, not when you could have her momma. You think she’s good? Try a real woman, the master,” she grins slyly, and Cole’s body starts to shake next to mine.
“Woman, you couldn’t pay me to fuck you. Not in a million years. Get your ass off my property,” Cole grunts.
My mother ignores his words and stays right where she’s standing. She gives Cole a coy grin and bites her bottom lip in an attempt to look sexy, but to be honest, it just looks pathetic and sad.
It’s right then that I feel sorry for Stephanie. An aging hoe. A woman who couldn’t handle teenage motherhood, so she abandoned her child to party. By the looks of her, she’s partied hard over the past few years.
“You get a taste of my sweet pussy, you’ll be singing a different tune, baby,” she coos. I scrunch my nose up at her words.
Cole bursts out laughing. His hand clutches his stomach and he bends forward a bit. Then he lifts his head and he looks at my mother, her stricken face, shocked that he’s not taking her up on her offer and dragging her into his house to screw her.
“Bitch, you couldn’t get me near your disease infested snatch for all the money in the world. I’d die never touching pussy again if yours was the only one left on earth. Get the fuck off of my property; and if I see you again, I’ll call the police and have you arrested for harassment and trespassing,” he states, wrapping his hand around mine, tugging me into the house and slamming the door closed before flipping the lock.
“Cole,” I murmur as I stand completely in shock.
He shakes his head, running his hand through his hair before he speaks. “Piece of work, that skank whore, showing up here like that—after abandoning you. I see her again, I won’t hesitate to call the police, and neither should you.”
“Trent sent her,” I whisper. “Sent her to ruin my life. I don’t know how, but that’s his endgame.”
“He ain’t ruining shit, baby,” Cole murmurs as he steps into my space, his chest brushing my nose, until his fingers gently fist into the back of my hair and he tugs on the strands so that my neck arches. His eyes search mine and the intensity that he has there, it takes my breath away. “I’ll ruin him before an ounce of his bullshit leaks onto you, Jessa.”
“What… what are you talking about?” I breathe.
His lips twitch and he shakes his head once. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but I need you to be on alert, vigilant. When this shit comes to surface, it’s going to blow up, and it’s going to blow up huge.”
“Cole,” I say, my voice trembling and shaking.
His hand leaves my hair only to wrap around my wrist, and he tugs me over to his sofa. We sit down next to each other, and he tells me his plan, his and John’s plan. Something they started working on the minute we came home from Grant last week, something huge.
It makes my stomach twist, just thinking about what could happen to him and to John if this doesn’t go as planned, if it blows up in their faces. I express as much, and Cole’s eyes soften before he cups my cheek with his hand.
“Baby,” he rasps. “I’m a man, a man that can’t sit by and let this shit happen. Trust me to take care of this and to take care of you.”
Licking my lips, I look up at him and let out a breath. “I trust you, Cole,” I whisper.
“That’s my sweet baby,” he murmurs as his lips brush mine, once, twice, three times before his mouth completely consumes me.
I moan against his lips and reach for his waist, lifting his shirt and sliding my hand around the warmth of his skin and up his back as I move closer toward him. His teeth nip my bottom lip, his hand moving along my hip, and then he’s on top of me in the next breath.
Less than a minute later, he’s inside of me, fucking me on his sofa, and I’m arching against him, ripping my mouth from his and crying out as I climb toward my release.
As is his way, he doesn’t slow down through my climax. He continues to fuck me with an unyielding strength. Only when he fills me with his release does he freeze, his cock planted deep inside of me.
“Love you, baby,” he rasps, from above me.
Lifting my hand to his face, I let my fingertips trace his lips, my eyes focused on his. “I love you too, Cole. How did I get a man as good as you in my life?” I rasp.
“Not so good,” he grunts, rolling his hips gently as he fucks me with his semi-hard cock. “Knew you were attached to Keller and didn’t give much of a fuck. I knew I had to have you for my own. I didn’t know I’d fall in love with you, but I knew that you were so fucking beautiful, and so goddamn special, that my life would forever change with you in it.”
My eyes well with tears at his sweet words, my hand moving to his hair. I feel his soft strands as I thread my fingers through it at the top of his head. “What I did, being with you behind Trent’s back like that, I’d never done anything like that before. I knew it was wrong,” I whisper before I pull his head down toward my face, m
y lips just a whisper away from his. “I’ve never been so happy, knowingly making a poor decision, in my life. I love you so much, Cole.”
We kiss, our conversation over and finished—for now.
COLE
WALKING INTO THE lab, I look around and notice the receptionist sitting behind the counter. I know her, and I cringe to myself. I know where I know her from, too, which is why I’m cringing. The staff Christmas party last year.
I fucked her.
Christ.
She arches a brow at me, and I suck in a breath as I make my way toward her. I’m going to have to do some fast as fuck talking if I’m going to get her to give me any information, especially the information I need.
“Cole,” she states coolly.
I never called her, fucked her against the bathroom stall door, and that was it. Fuck me, what a dick.
“Hey, Robin,” I murmur softly. Her eyes narrow. “How you been, sweetheart?” I ask.
“Don’t give me that sweetheart shit. What do you want?” she practically growls. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was fantasizing about my death right about now.
“Pat had some piss tests done a couple weeks ago…” I let my words trail off and watch as she lifts her brow. “Need those results, in detail, if it’s possible.”
She leans back in her chair and her eyes scan me. “Why would I give them to you? Patrick picked them up, he reviewed them, and off he went. Why do you suddenly need them?” she asks, much too fucking observant and smart for her own good.
I shake my head once before I lift my eyes and look straight into hers. She’s a pretty girl, a few years younger than me. If I wasn’t still screwing around with Brittany, if I’d had my head outta my ass and not focused on work and only work—I would have been able to see that Robin could have possibly been more than just a one night stand. None of it matters now, though. Now there’s Jessa, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world.
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